


when the sun sets, and the moon follows

by ironwoodsfairy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst and Feels, Elderly Gaang, M/M, Multi, Self Harm (Azula & Small Bolts of Lightning), it hurts but it's comforting too, yes I actually cried while writing this, you're going to suffer but you're going to be happy about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25186123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironwoodsfairy/pseuds/ironwoodsfairy
Summary: "Are you afraid?" he finally asks, tracing circles into his shoulder with the tip of his finger.Zuko smiles softly, as though knowing the thoughts that haunt his lover's mind. "No. Uncle is coming. I already hear him humming his funny old songs." The melodic rasp is fainter and fainter still, and the small flames about the room dwindle further.Sokka feels his heart begin to pound in his chest again. His lifelong fears, beastly things in the night with blackened claws and bloodied teeth, are not so easily assuaged."Will you come for me? When it's my time, will you come for me and take me with you?"Zuko looks up at him, eyes shining, and caresses Sokka's cheek with his hand."Of course. No force in any world could keep me away from you forever."
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 96
Kudos: 409





	when the sun sets, and the moon follows

**Author's Note:**

> I was driving, listening to Ever Since New York by Harry Styles of all things ("And I've been praying, I never did before..."), and suddenly this was born.  
> 

She stands guard at his door and waits. It's an ancient beast, this thing that gnaws on her ribs, that threatens to crawl up her throat and spill out of her mouth to let the world burn blue. Mothers lose their unborn babes, fathers lose their sons to war, princesses lose their parents and crowns and nations to the monsters they become. Loss fills the very marrow of her bones, but _this_. . .

. . . there is no word for this. After all she had done to him, and all he had done for her _anyway_ , there he lay beyond the door. Her last tether to the world, and all his breaths are balanced on the edge of borrowed time.

Loss has been mere child's play.

Something burns behind her eyes, and from where her hands are folded neatly before her, a small flash of light illuminates the corridor.

***

The grey in her hair unnerves him.

For nearly a lifetime she has been away, sailing the world after what the physicians deemed was her successful recovery. Pardoned by the Fire Lord, even if her people never truly would, she and her brother built something akin to an understanding through the letters that journeyed between them.

Sokka had seen some of them almost three decades after the war, her angled scrawl occasionally strewn about Zuko's desk when they began to steal but a moment together, away from prying eyes that already knew and accepted what they had not yet told their countrymen.

When the last letter she received had begged her to come home, she obeyed, but whether her obedience was born of love or loyalty, Sokka doesn’t know. All he knows is that the motionless, aged woman before him is the ghost of a girl he once knew. 

Time has worn on her as it has on them all, furrowing deep lines around her mouth and across her brow, stealing the night sky from her hair and leaving moonbeams in its stead. But she remains - her edges still sharp, her eyes still painfully observant. 

He watches her from down the hall, far out of earshot of the tearful goodbyes he knew he would hear if he moved any closer. 

Voices that undoubtedly ring in Azula's ears.

A burst of light captures his attention and the scent of singed flesh fills the air, but still, she does not move.

***

Minutes pass, or perhaps they are hours - Sokka can no longer tell. All he knows is that the ache has burrowed a home deep in his gut, that both the knowing and the not knowing terrify him in equal measure.

When the door finally opens, Katara's weeping eyes meet his, and her chin wobbles fiercely as she chokes back a sob.

Her arm wrapped through the waterbender's, Toph is the first to break the silence.

"Please don’t, not now," she rasps, her voice a strangled, hollow thing in the darkening corridor. "Just... just let me get down the hall. If you start, so will I. And I won't be able to stop."

Katara squeezes her eyes shut and breathes, slow and deep despite its wheeze. Slipping her arm away from Toph's, she moves to squeeze her shoulder instead, and watches her walk away through the long memorized paths of the palace.

Toph's footsteps fade, but still Katara does not move, does not speak. She simply turns to stare at the wall before her, summoning all the composure she can find. It is only when Sokka speaks her name, desperate to care for his little sister no matter how white her hair, that she crumbles to the floor.

He catches her before her knees make contact, and pulls her into his arms.

***

Sokka stands at the door and hesitates, unable to reach out his hand and push. It should be a simple act, but the surety of what pain and devastation lays within freezes the blood in his veins.

As true as the sun that rises and the stars that fall, the next time he stands here, Zuko will be dead.

The thought makes his heart pound and his breath catch in his throat. He tries to calm himself, but his grip on reality begins to slip.

_Is it better to love with the promise of suffering? With the promise of goodbye, when someone has to leave first?_

He doesn't know.

When she speaks, it is the first time he has heard her voice in years. The brittleness of it threatens to drag him backwards in time to a war long won and a life long passed. But her words grant him an anchor, offer him the ragged edge of harbor on the horizon.

"Go to him."

Sokka watches her for a moment, unwilling - or perhaps unable - to offer a quip in any form. Immeasurable memories circle him like water around a stone. If he stays, he will surely erode away, cracked into a thousand pieces and carried to the edge of the world. 

He puts his hand on the door and pushes. 

***

The embers of the fireplace burn low, and candles flare gently with the Fire Lord's ever-waning breath. They cast a soft glow about the room and throw Sokka's shadow across the walls like a ghost.

He glances around, centering himself against the void he knows is on its way, the enemy's cavalry racing to crest the hill at any moment, daring to come crashing down in a wave. Sheer red curtains catch the last light of the setting sun, bearing a hint of starlight in the sky. They flutter in the breeze from the open window as the scent of jasmine blossoms mingle with the smoke on the air, and a fresh cup of tea sits on the bedside table.

"Katara was crying outside."

His heart stutters at the clarity of the voice - a hope swelling in his chest like an ocean's tide under the midnight moon. He has to remind himself to breathe. He has to remind himself that hope has no place here, at the end of days. That hope ran out long ago.

"She was trying not to."

"I know," Zuko whispers. Sokka is shaken by his smile, still so true to the boy he met when they were young, _impossibly_ young, enemies from foreign nations.

He readjusts the chair by the bedside and sits, taking Zuko's reaching hand gently in his own.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, so rocked by the sight of his lover. His hair long ago turned white, his skin long ago became wrinkled - a map of an ancient life. But there’s an otherworldliness to the sheen of his eyes and the air of his voice.

Zuko blinks slowly, tightening his grip on Sokka's fingers. "Uncle will be here soon."

Sokka closes his eyes as he fights back tears, remembering the stories Zuko had told him so many years before - a song of the veil between worlds, of passed loved ones come to guide them home.

_So much time wasted before we gave in to what we knew was always right._

“Does he have to come so soon?” His voice is strangled. As soon as the words are out, he slams his jaw shut, choking back the knots in his throat as his tears begin to spill over.

_No, not now. This isn’t about you. He shouldn't have to comfort you._

But here, at the end of this life they had not found the courage to live together until their eyes had already begun to crinkle, Zuko knows him far too well.

“It’s alright, Sokka. It’s alright. Uncle has the honor of fetching me tonight. Caring for you is mine - has _always_ been mine.”

At the comfort of his words, Sokka's chest cracks open, spilling into the room. He sobs, pressing his face to the bed beside Zuko’s hip as knobby fingers trail in his hair.

"You can't go, you can't leave me, not yet, not now, _please_ Zuko!" His mumbles turn to shouts against the sheets, guilt crawling up his spine at the words he cannot stop from escaping his throat.

"It's not up to me, Sokka. If it were, I'd never leave this world while you were still in it."

Sokka only squeezes his eyes tighter, doubled over onto the edge of the bed until his sobs ebb into the night.

***

"What are you thinking about?"

Sokka blinks, looking down at his face from where he is propped up on an elbow, curled into Zuko's side. They’d been quiet for a while, laying there, desperate to etch this last night so deeply into their bones that neither sand nor ash could scrub it away.

"It's nothing."

Zuko gives him a look, the memory of a stern glint softened by years of adoration. "It's not nothing." His voice has grown fainter, and Sokka curls further into his warmth, savoring the time they have left together and offering his own presence as a silent promise that Zuko will not leave this world alone.

He waits, watching the candlelight dance in Zuko's eyes. Already, he looks peaceful, and Sokka is not eager to disrupt the acceptance that eases the transition from this world to the next, nor to direct their last night in any way his lover does not wish. 

But Zuko keeps watching him.

"Are you afraid?" he finally asks, tracing circles into his shoulder with the tip of his finger.

Zuko smiles softly, as though knowing the thoughts that haunt his lover's mind. "No. Uncle is coming. I already hear him humming his funny old songs." The melodic rasp is fainter and fainter still, and the small flames about the room dwindle further.

Sokka feels his heart begin to pound in his chest again. His lifelong fears, beastly things in the night with blackened claws and bloodied teeth, are not so easily assuaged. 

"Will you come for me? When it's my time, will you come for me and take me with you?"

Zuko looks up at him, eyes shining, and caresses Sokka's cheek with his hand.

" _Of course._ No force in any world could keep me away from you forever."

Sokka swallows hard, reminding himself to breathe once more around the gaping wound hiding somewhere in his chest. He tries to speak, to say anything at all, but he only nods.

Zuko's eyes shift to the corner of the room, trailing the sight of a phantom Sokka cannot see as the candlelights begin to dance in unison, flaring the smallest hint taller.

He smiles. Then, his gaze returns to Sokka's face.

"I love you, Sokka. Even from the next world, I will always love you," he whispers, leaning into him with all the strength he has left, as though melding their bodies together is all that is needed to stretch this moment into eternity and ward off the inevitable. "I love you. I love you." He repeats it like a mantra, a final parting gift to brand into his lover's soul, as though he had not already done it a thousand times over.

Sokka wraps his arms tighter around him in a touch he silently begs will hold him to this world until the very moment he is made to leave.

For every one of Zuko's whispered _I love you's_ , Sokka matches it with his own, offering uncountable devotions as his own eyes slide shut, and a fresh tear slips down his face.

Even as Zuko's words finally fade, he is still breathing, and for that Sokka is grateful.

Pressing a kiss to Zuko's temple, Sokka tells himself they are only going to sleep.

***

Katara slips uncomfortably through the crowd. Around her, revelers sing and shout, rejoicing in the ascension of Fire Lord Izumi. Music rumbles throughout the hall, and pounding footsteps nearly shake the very floor out from under them. 

She should celebrate, she knows, but revelry is far beyond her capabilities.

_How can they dance? How can they laugh?_

She scans the faces of those around her, but she recognizes none of them. Even Azula found a way to escape, though she supposes she never expected the princess to remain for long anyway. 

A guest guffaws nearby, but when she catches Katara's eye, her expression shifts quickly from a hazy joy to something resembling pity.

Tears prick behind her eyes as she steps out of the crowd and into the hall, a desperation to get _away_ thrumming through her veins.

For a time, she wanders, following the memory of voices and laughter long gone that echo off the walls and whisper to her in the darkness.

 _That's Aang_ , she thinks, a sad smile settling on her face. _There's Suki, and Yue. And - ah, yes, that's Zuko._

When she finally crosses paths with Toph and Sokka, they look young again. The sunken lines of their faces have disappeared, the grey in their hair reclaimed by the moon.

But then she blinks, and the years return.

She stops before them where they sit silently on a bench. The party has fallen silent on their ears, and here are only the sounds of their breathing, and the crickets singing beyond the open windows.

Sokka looks up at her, eyes red and shining.

Wordlessly, he slides to the end of the bench, offering Katara the space to sit between them.

She takes it.

***

Sokka begins to pray.

Despite his inexperience, it feels natural. Easy. It reminds him of sailing his ships between the ice floes of the south, and charting his course by the stars.

So he prays. He prays to the sun, to the moon, to the starlight shining down upon the sea on a clear night.

But above all, he prays to Zuko.

He wonders if perhaps prayer may be the wrong word, but when he's sitting by the turtleduck pond, telling the presence he imagines by his side about Izumi’s reign and reveling in the sun's warmth as it drapes across his back like a lover, no other word comes close.

***

He is young again, flying high above the clouds on Appa's back as the wind combs through his hair and tugs at his clothes.

Zuko sits to his left, rolling a fireball across his fingertips, and smiles at him. It's a shy smile, one that whispers of a waiting future, and Sokka takes in the sight of it.

Across from him, Aang sits next to Suki, laughing at a joke and petting Momo where he is curled up in his lap, and Yue simply basks in the sunlight, relishing the sensations of sky and sun.

"I've missed this," Sokka says, his voice carrying easily despite the wind.

"Don’t worry, Sokka. We'll all be together again someday. Then we can fly wherever we want to go!" Aang says, his eyes bright and his tone ever cheerful.

"How do you know?"

But it is Zuko who answers.

"Because we've been waiting for you."

***

Three more years have carved themselves into their faces, but when he wakes, Sokka still sees the youth in his little sister’s eyes, hears the ever-present twinkle in her voice. 

"Were you dreaming again?"

The details have already been snatched away, but the love blossoming in his chest remains.

Sokka nods, a heavy movement that draws a line of concern to her brow.

"I think Zuko is on his way."

Katara's lips harden into a line as she clears her throat, reaching for his hand where it lays atop the furs that ward the cool southern air from his skin. When she tries to speak, no words come out.

"Katara. It's okay."

" _No_ , it's _not_ okay," she whispers. "Losing the ones we love will _never_ be okay."

Sokka tries to shrug, but the motion is more difficult now, the image less distinct. "But we will find them again. They're waiting for us, Katara, I know they are."

His breath has begun to rattle, but he can find no fear in his heart. Not when every part of him has found peace.

"Aang will come for you. I'm sure of it. He'll beat me on his air scooter."

Katara laughs through her tears. "As long as you're waiting there too, I don't mind who comes to get me."

"I'll be waiting. I promise."

Katara grips his hand tighter. "I love you, Sokka."

He turns his head slightly, smiling at her. "I love you, too. I'll go find them. But-" he pauses, taking a moment to refocus his fading eyes, to savor this moment with his sister - "take your time. There's no rush. We'll wait for you."

The fire that warms their home suddenly shimmers, and Katara watches as Sokka’s gaze moves, following an energy unseen.

She sucks in a breath to steady herself.

“Go to him.”

And as the flames dance like sunlight on the waves, his smile softens.


End file.
